The Blum–Viollette proposal of 1936 takes its name from

Léon Blum André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister of France. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of socialist l ...

and Maurice Viollette, who acted as the French premier and governor-general of

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. The proposal was introduced to the Popular Front government of France in 1936, and aimed to address the issue of longstanding French colonialism in Algeria along with the persistent disenfranchisement of the territory's Muslim majority. The proposal would have enabled a small number of Algerian Muslims to obtain full French

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

while still allowing them to be subject to

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

law on some social issues (such as

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

, custody,

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

). An earlier policy, the sénatus-consulte legislation of 1865, had enabled Muslims to apply for French citizenship only if they renounced the provisions of Islamic personal status law, something that the vast majority of Muslims refused to do since many regarded doing so as the equivalent of apostasy. The Blum–Viollette proposal of 1936 would have granted these benefits to the highly educated, as well as to those Algerian men who served in the French military, with the plan to widen the benefits to other Muslims at a later date. The proposal did not apply to Algerian Jews, who had gained French citizenship following the

Crémieux Decree The Crémieux Decree (; ) was a law that granted French citizenship to the majority of the Jewish population in French Algeria (around 35,000), signed by the Government of National Defense on 24 October 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. It was ...

of 1870. The proposal never made it to the French

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

for a vote because of the massive protest staged by French settlers and Messali Hadj's

Étoile Nord-Africaine The Étoile Nord-Africaine or ENA (French for ''North African Star'') was an early Algerian nationalist organization founded in 1926. It was dissolved first in 1929, then reorganised in 1933 under the name of Glorieuse ENA and again dissolved in ...

in Algeria. It was the failure of this and other such proposals that eventually led to the emergence of violent resistance on the part of the Algerian National Liberation Front and other militant groups whose members aimed to reclaim sovereignty for Algeria by force.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blum-Viollette Proposal Politics of French Algeria Background and causes of the Algerian War 1936 in Algeria 1936 in the French colonial empire